


For What It's Worth

by Ludovico_is_my_homeboy



Series: Nocturne [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Captivity, Caretaking, Carrier Stiles, Codependency, Coercion, Derek is dead, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Emotional Sex, Emotionally Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Gang Member Chris, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hand-wavy in terms of details about the apocalypse, Hurt/Comfort, I've made this sound really awful but it's really not that dark, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insert your own apocalypse backstory here, Introspection, Kidnapped Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Mpreg, Not loads of plot, Possessive Chris, Post-Apocalypse, Prisoner of War, Probably over-tagging to be on the safe side but if I missed something tell me, Protective Chris, References to Depression, Secret BAMF Stiles, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivalist Chris, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Relationships, War Prize Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:27:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludovico_is_my_homeboy/pseuds/Ludovico_is_my_homeboy
Summary: After the plague and after the war, the world as we know it has ended. Desperate to leave a life of violence behind him, raider and scavenger Chris takes a newly widowed, grieving, pregnant Stiles as his war prize.
Relationships: Chris Argent/Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski (past)
Series: Nocturne [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085318
Comments: 15
Kudos: 98





	1. Battle Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Please read "Prelude" first or this story might not make as much sense, and as always check the tags.

Having selected the spoils of his own strangely personal war, Chris allows Kate to handle transportation and security for his new acquisition.

When he hears Chris make his decision, the boy drops his head, whiskey eyes skittering away from Chris's, his long, pale neck bending as he stares at the ground and struggles to compose himself.

The sight of the boy’s unconscious submission sends a strange symphony of feelings through Chris – sympathy, and also hyperawareness of the vulnerability of that exposed throat.

He is nearly overcome by the not-quite-conflicting desire to bruise and soothe that soft skin; to get his hands on it, regardless, and feel that fragile tenderness underneath his calloused palm and know that it belongs to him, to do with as he pleases.

Chris turns away and nods to his sister, self-discipline helping him curb such desires.

At best they are premature. There is still much to do before his prize can be enjoyed.

He could easily sort the kid out himself but leaving the whole thing to Kate gives her an outlet for her constant abrasive irritation and keeps her busy while he steels himself for a last conversation with his father. He feels a possessive twitch as she yanks the boy up off the ground none-too-gently and watches as she barks orders and drags that lovely, wiry form away.

Kate insists on elaborate restraints as she secures the boy in the back of Chris’s modified truck, a vehicle heavily armored and with plenty of space in the back for cargo or for a temporary shelter. Chris chooses not to micromanage her, but to his eye the cuffs and collar and metal cage his sister unpacks and fits in the space seem like overkill.

The boy is shoved into the confined cage and locked in place, and against the bars he somehow manages to look even paler, smaller, more breakable. The bump in his midsection stands out even more as he hunches over, as protective of his unborn child as he can be with his hands bound behind him.

Chris has to chide himself for this line of thinking. He wryly notes he has already started calling the boy ‘The Boy’ in his head, even though his prize is clearly of age and certainly adult enough to have a baby of his own on the way. He has attached assumptions about youth and vulnerability to his captive, and even if the boy does fit the partial profile he has constructed, it really shouldn’t make any difference.

Chris knows very well that one should never judge the relative dangerousness of a person by their outward appearance.

It’s just as well that this will be his last raid. Retirement will suit him better than raiding if he is suddenly so willing to give leeway to a slender, doe-eyed waif with a bun in the oven.

Gerard finishes whatever conversation he is having with his subordinates, sending them and their spoils off to take point for the convoy. When he turns his attention to Chris his eyes immediately slide off his son, gaze latching on instead to Chris’s truck and the prisoner secured inside.

“That’s it, then?” Gerard says, lip curling. “Got what you wanted?”

Chris nods. “Yes,” he manages to say in a steady voice.

Gerard’s distain is evident, but so also is his impatience to get moving. To his relief, Chris sees that his father is in no mood to rehash the same argument they’ve been having for months. Not that further discussion would have changed Chris’s mind – he is giving up raiding, he is distancing himself from his family’s quest for wealth and power in this new dystopia, he has gotten the last piece to his jigsaw puzzle of a retirement plan.

Nothing on earth is going to change that.

Still, it’s nice not to have to hear all the reasons why he is a disappointment listed again. Gerard thinks his son is unambitious and weak, and Chris thinks his father has comprehensively and systematically violated every possible kind of moral code over the last several years.

There is nothing left to say.

The two men don’t shake hands, but they nod to each other. Kate shouts and Chris turns.

“Goodbye,” he says quietly, and he thinks he talking as much to his mother, long dead, and the life he had before, as he is to his father.

Gerard doesn’t respond. That’s fine. Better that way.

Time to go home.

They drive for nearly half a day without stopping. Those raiders on bikes take point while those in trucks make up the main body of the convoy. Their vehicles are specially designed to carry enough fuel and outfitted to prevent attack. In this new world scavengers and smaller raiding parties tend to prey on whatever they can, so deterrents are a must for any large group with valuables in tow.

Chris and his new trophy remain part of the larger Argent convoy for most of the trip before breaking off in the last hour or so and going their own way.

It is early evening by the time they turn down the barely-there path – more of an off-roading area – in the final stretch of their journey to Chris’s home. They cut through increasingly dense woods towards their destination, and as they approach a gentle rain starts to fall.

Throughout the journey, Chris is tormented by inner tension. The urge to pull over and examine his cargo is almost overwhelming. It can’t be comfortable in the cage, especially for a pregnant person, and Chris itches with the need to check that his prize isn’t sore or hurting or in need of water or a bathroom. Each jolt and bump on the road sets his teeth on edge.

On a much more basic, perhaps even selfish level, Chris just wants to see the boy and make sure he is still really, truly, there.

They pull up, finally, to a wide clearing in the woods with an extensively improved cabin at the edge. This structure and the surrounding area have been Chris’s personal domain and pet project for ages now, and are about to take up their new roles as bolt-hole, doomsday hideout, and starter home for two (soon to be three).

He climbs out of the truck and does his initial sweep, checking the inner perimeter’s booby traps, trip wires, security triggers, to ensure that no one has come by while he was gone. There’s no ambush, and no one is hiding in the shadows.

Satisfied, he unloads his personal gear, drags it up to the porch and stows it. He can get the heavy stuff and lock up the truck later.

He pauses, woolgathering for a long moment.

He is strangely reluctant to check the back of the truck.

No… not reluctant. Savoring the anticipation, perhaps. Like a kid waiting to open presents on Christmas.

When he finally works his way around to freeing the boy from his confinement, however, he regrets not pulling over earlier or opening the cage sooner.

The boy is twisted in place, half-kneeling and half-lying down in a fetal position, and he is damp and nearly frozen in the cold air. His torn, thin clothing – which undoubtedly hasn’t been changed since the raiders first arrived in his sleepy town days ago – offers little protection, and there’s a smear of dirt his face which he can’t wipe off with his hands restrained.

The boy blinks at him, dully, and the shadows under his whisky-amber eyes stand out against pale skin like bruises.

Chris unlocks the cage first, then the handcuffs, then the collar. He is trying not to seem rushed in his movements but there is an urgency within him as he looks at what he… what Kate… what has been inflicted on his prize.

He wants desperately to massage away the aches and warm the gooseflesh under his hands but the kid trembles and jerks away as Chris frees him and the older man decides, finally, to back up and let him settle a bit first.

Once released the boy needs to exit the cage on his own steam as it is too small for Chris to climb in to, so Chris stands back and tries to project patience as the kid collects himself. It takes what feels like an eternity – the boy's long, trembling fingers are free now to touch his face, his belly, and Chris watches as he slowly stretches and forces blood back into sleeping limbs.

When he does manage to crawl out from the cage and down from the truck-bed, he is barely able to stay upright, so shaky are his legs.

Chris wants to touch him, but hesitates.

Then he remembers that he can, that he is allowed.

The boy is his.

He places one hand on the boy’s lower back and another on his arm. The boy continues to twitch and jerk, not quite pulling away – he’s not stupid, this kid, and he’s got the sense or the instinct to know that he is under a predator’s claws – but not submitting to the touch either.

They stumble a few steps forward together before the boy steadies and then comes to something of a halt, his eyes flicking from here to there, body turning slightly in place.

“Stop,” Chris says. His voice isn’t unnaturally sharp or aggressive, but it breaks the calm of their surroundings in a way which causes the boy to jump slightly, spinning to face him with wide eyes.

There’s a slight flush creeping into the boy’s cheeks as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t – probably viewing the terrain with a mind to escape – but either way this works for what Chris has to say.

“Look around,” Chris tilts his head towards the trees, the house, the truck.

The kid, wan and exhausted, blinks at him and then obeys. He turns a bit in place, taking in his new surroundings with a reasonably sharp eye for someone clearly shaken, shocked, and frightened.

“We’re the only house for miles,” Chris says when he is satisfied that the boy has seen what he needs to. “The nearest people in the area are other members of the raiding party, and they won’t help you if they find you. We’re well away from your home town, over a hundred miles, and I doubt very much that anyone from there could find you here, even if they had a mind to.”

Chris nods towards the truck. “The gas for that is kept secure in an off-site location and the tank is at near empty now. Even if you could get to it without me noticing, you need to punch a code in to start the ignition… and even if you somehow figured that out, you’d make it about two miles before you’re out of gas and dead in the water.”

The light in the kid’s eyes is dimming slightly, his mouth settling into a thin line.

Chris keeps going anyway. It’s a prepared speech he has practiced in his head before, but it is a necessary one all the same.

He needs to do this now so that there are no misunderstandings later.

“These woods go for miles in every direction and I have traps laid out all over. The traps are for security, so nobody gets too close without my knowing, but they work equally well for whether someone is breaking in or trying to leave. They’re not all… they’re not ‘catch and release’ traps. They’re meant to stop, and some of them are meant to hurt. If you get caught in one it’ll hurt you, might kill you. Best case scenario you’d be stuck and I might not be able to find you for days.”

The boy shivers, and Chris isn’t entirely sure it’s just because of the cold twilight air surrounding them. That said, the boy is barefoot and only wearing a thin, carefully patched shirt and threadbare jeans.

Chris finds his eyes drawn back to the truck, to the cage in the truck-bed where the kid spent the last six hours chained up like an animal.

“Let’s go inside,” he says, and puts his hand on the boy’s arm, leading him towards the house. The younger man flinches at the touch but again doesn’t pull away or otherwise resist.

They get up the front porch steps and inside, pausing briefly as Chris disarms his elaborate security locks – at one point the boy throws Chris a look and seems like he is about to comment on the older man’s apparent paranoia, though he ultimately says nothing.

The silence is like a living thing as they both step into the house - the cold, dimly-lit house that has been filled with no one and nothing but a vague kind of potential these past few months.

“Big,” the boy comments quietly, looking around at the generous interior, the space opening up to a living room with a fireplace, a kitchen down the hall. He then bites his lip as if to keep any more words from pouring out unprompted.

He’s not wrong. It is more of a lodge than a cabin, two stories, a patio, a bigger place than a single person would perhaps need. And it’s obvious from the darkness and chill as they walk in that no one else lives here or has been here for a while.

The boy takes it all in with a shrewd gaze Chris is coming to realize is standard for him. As he does so, he wraps long, bare arms around himself unconsciously to try to warm up, lets his hands drift down to rub a little at his swollen belly. 

“I don’t think you’re a stupid person…” Chris starts, planning to continue his spiel and get it out of the way.

“You don’t know me,” the boy interrupts, gaze snapping back to meet Chris’s. “You have nothing to base any assumptions on.”

It’s a shocking and surprisingly articulate outburst from someone who has barely spoken before this point. It's like that single word uttered earlier opened a kind of floodgate. There is a sharp edge in the kid’s words, a spark of defiance.

Chris lets the resulting silence stretch, tip over the edge into uncomfortable.

“Alright, then,” the older man continues, finally. “I’ll spell it out for you. You won’t get away on foot and you won’t get away in the truck. There is no one coming here for you and no one nearby who would help. If you try anything chances are you will be seriously hurt in the attempt.”

Chris throws a sideways glance around the interior of the house. “It’s just you and me here. I don’t have family or friends I live with, and I don’t have any other… companions. You’re my only one.”

The boy looks up at him mutinously, the effect of his glare considerably lessoned by the fact that he is still shivering and that his legs are trembling with the effort of staying upright.

He looks painfully young and fragile in this moment, and it squeezes something in Chris’s chest to see it.

“You may be thinking, then, that there is only one way out, and that’s killing me,” Chris says.

The boy, for his part, appears to be considering that possibility.

“You’re welcome to try, I suppose,” Chris shrugs, a not-quite-smile on his lips. He feels weirdly unfazed by the idea. “I’d recommend doing it quick and being smart about it. I’m a hunter, a raider. I don’t go down easy and if you don’t do a thorough job of it, I guarantee I will make it a priority to find you afterwards. More to the point, even if you did somehow manage to kill me, you’d still be stuck here. Alone.”

And in this world ‘alone’ might as well be ‘dead’. Especially since this particular boy is more vulnerable than most. Chris’s eyes drift down to the baby bump and he sees a pale fist clenching against his war prize’s thigh.

“Maybe it’s worth it to me,” the younger man rasps.

“If you weren’t carrying a baby inside of you, maybe.”

“Maybe it’s still worth it.”

Chris pauses, lets that sentiment sink into the space between them. Strangely, again, he finds that he is okay with this kind of line in the sand, this level of pushback. It says a lot about who this stranger is and what he will allow.

It says something about how far Chris can push him.

“I can understand that,” Chris admits after a moment. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I want from you. You don’t know why you’re here…”

The boy lets out a skeptical huff which Chris graciously ignores.

“I didn’t bring you here to hurt you,” the older man continues doggedly. “I don’t want to chain you up in my basement. I’m not into torture and beatings and… I want you to be here, with me, and I don’t want more fighting and bloodshed. I’m tired… I’ve had enough violence to last me a lifetime, and I suspect you have too. I don’t expect you to be happy about this right now but I’m hoping that in time you’ll… that we can both at least be comfortable here. So, I’m not going to give you a reason to want me dead. My goal here is not to make you hate me more than you already do.”

There is a beat as the boy considers this, and then, eyes narrowing, he tilts his head slightly and nods.

"Fine, I'll bite," he says with grim determination. "What's your goal, then?"

The ex-hunter huffs, bemused. He recognizes the need to push boundaries when he sees it, but it suits him for the kid to do so, and it also seems to be suiting the kid himself. If his little war prize feels comfortable asking questions, maybe that's a good first step forward. Chris glances ruefully at the house. 

“You’re right,” he says, deliberately lightening his tone. “It is a big house, isn’t it? Too big for just me.”

He pauses, returning his gaze to the boy who, after a brief hesitation, nods slightly.

“I was gearing up for retirement before… before everything happened. Ended. Thought I’d find a nice place out in the woods, get away from it all for a while.”

“Retirement,” the boy echoes, an unmistakable edge in his voice.

“Yeah,” Chris waves vaguely at a big window in the living room. Through the glass he can just about see the beginnings of a rather sad attempt at a garden, a failed trial-run from last spring.

“I made good money before, and I was planning to put in for early retirement or work part-time from here. A fresh start. I was thinking I’d try living off the grid and I made this my… my project. I wanted to be self-sufficient – I’ve got a water system, a solar powered generator, everything. I could hunt, fish, grow my own food. Catch up on my reading. Maybe… find someone to settle down with.”

It is the truth and nothing but the truth, but it isn’t working, isn’t cutting any ice. Previously skeptical, the boy is looking downright angry now.

“Obviously things have changed,” Chris finishes lamely, realizing belatedly that talking about his big (selfish) plans made in a world that doesn’t exist anymore sounds, at best, somewhat callous. “The world changed.”

“And somewhere in the middle there you joined a pack of raiders and kidnapped a pregnant person to be your full-time house pet slash sex slave… for what? For kicks? A mid-life crisis? For fuck's sake, man, you could have just gotten a goddamn dog!” the boy snarls.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Chris snaps sharply, causing his prisoner to flinch back. “There are things you don’t know about, couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Well, I don’t want to hear it, thanks. No offence to your storytelling skills.”

“I don’t want us to be enemies here, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” the kid – young man – shoots back, scowling. “You don’t want me to hate you? You don't want to be _enemies_?! You and your gang of psychopaths murdered my husband and burned my town down around me!”

“And what,” Chris asks, coolly, “in your mind, would be an acceptable mourning period for you for that? Bearing in mind that it’s the end of the fucking world and everything good and pure is on fire now.”

The kid looks like he’s been slapped, and something in Chris curdles unpleasantly at how quickly this has devolved.

It doesn’t matter, though.

(It matters. It hurts.)

“Look," Chris sighs and shakes his head. "I…it is what it is. I’d say I’m sorry, and I am sorry you’re hurting. Truly, I am. However, the fact of the matter is that you’re probably safer here than you have been in a long time. You’ve got food, shelter, and more amenities than most people have these days.”

Chris pauses. He realizes he is holding a lot of tension in his hands and flexes them, subtly, before taking in a deep breath and deliberately softening his tone.

“I’m not out to hurt you. I mean that. But I’m also not going to give you up and let you go because of… an emotional or moral issue. The world doesn’t work that way anymore. There isn’t room for… for codes of conduct anymore.”

 _No room for sentiment_ , Chris thinks, but they're not his own words… that’s his father talking.

“I’m not safer here. This is stupid,” the boy chokes out after a brief delay, waving frantically at the same window Chris pointed to earlier. The older man wonders idly if his new companion is always this argumentative, has a sneaking suspicion that he is. “You don’t survive by going all isolationist in the woods! You survive by being in a community, working with other people. Fuck, my town pooled resources… we started a community garden two days after the war kicked off and we used it right up until you guys came marching in!”

“Well, that’s one way to do it,” Chris admits. “But that’s not what’s happening here.”

“What about…” the boy cuts himself off, seems to lose a lot of his momentum as a sudden, alarming thought occurs to him. He wraps his arms around himself, cradling his round belly, going even paler than he already was.

Chris waits.

“Do you… do you know a doctor? For when…?”

Ah.

The boy looks at him, frightened and still. It is unsettling. Chris doesn’t know why exactly but it seems wrong, somehow, for this pale, slender Carrier with the fiery eyes and sharp tongue to be so quiet.

He seemed much more himself a minute ago when he was yelling at Chris about community gardening projects than he does now.

Now he seems crippled by fear, by self-doubt. 

But he was also right before, of course, with what he said. Chris doesn’t know this kid at all. He has nothing to base these assumptions on. They are strangers to each other, unable to move forward.

He should fix that.

“What’s your name?” Chris asks after a moment.

The boy blinks at him, and it is almost like he is blinking himself awake. Stunned, wide eyes focus on the older man.

There is a brief hesitation and then a murmured: “Stiles.”

“Stiles?”

Stiles nods. There is a beat of silence which is apparently a beat too long for the kid because he adds, almost under his breath, “It’s a nickname.”

Chris can understand that. When the world ended, and in the days that followed, names did take on a whole new meaning. With all the old rules gone you could choose your own identity, and names could come to define you in new ways. He knew many raiders who picked new nicknames after it all went to hell.

And besides, how many times has having the last name of Argent shaped his own life?

Maybe he’ll ask for the boy’s full name later. For now, this is enough.

A nickname, as unusual as the boy himself is. How fitting.

“Stiles,” he repeats and then nods once. “I’m Chris.”

Stiles almost smiles, but not quite. “I know.”

Sure, he must have overheard. Chris smiles inwardly, tells himself to watch this one. He notices things.

“How far along are you?”

The boy’s hand twitches again, clenching protectively over that bump in his midsection. Chris does not get the impression that the act is a conscious one.

“A little over four months,” Stiles says after a beat.

He has to hand it to the kid – he keeps his voice steady enough. But Chris can hear the uncertainty in his voice, see the fear in his eyes.

Stiles stares at him. It’s not a glare of defiance, exactly. It takes Chris a moment to recognize the emotion etching itself on the boy’s face as grief.

This still-tiny bump, this little soul growing inside – it’s important. So important.

“You’ll want to keep it?” he asks.

Stiles doesn’t say anything, just blinks. The hand that is pressed against his belly continues to twitch and clench spasmodically, but Stiles doesn’t move otherwise, and doesn’t protest.

Knows that he can’t protest, that it wouldn’t do any good. Knows that none of the words that flowed so easily before can help him.

Knows that the choice is Chris’s now – Chris, who is bigger, more brutal, more violent. Chris who has the guns and the crossbow and the truck and the food and water supply. Chris, who represents all the horrors of this new world, who is at least partially responsible for his lover's death.

Stiles recognizes his relative powerlessness here.

It’s painful to watch the cogs turn, the defiance burn out, resignation set in. A distant, buried part of Chris recognizes that sensation, feels it settle in his bones.

A part of him grieves, too, for all that he has lost. He grieves that it must be this way now.

And it must be this way.

In another life, maybe, he could have met Stiles in a quiet café, offered to buy the boy a drink, sat down and shared the peaceful atmosphere, gotten to know him in a casual, unhurried way. They could have talked, made plans and kept dates, cooked food together, and tumbled into bed and intimacy without any kind of fear and pain and hate simmering between them.

(In another life, Stiles would be with the father of his unborn child. He'd be living in blissful ignorance of Chris, untouched by the savage violence that rules them all now. Chris would be living his own quiet life, dreaming of retirement. In real life, they never would have met, and Chris suspects that that alternative universe would have been just fine and perfect for Stiles.

For Chris, however, it would have been miserable and lonely. Even before the world ended he was alone, limited by his own choices. And just because he knows it's wrong doesn't mean he's not going to take advantage now, take this boon offering with both hands and run with it. He will run with this as far as it will go.)

This is the reality now.

The older man can see the intelligence in Stiles’s eyes, for all that the boy is clearly in shock and nearly bent over double with emotional pain. He can see his mind racing even as that generous mouth thins into a line of repressed pain.

He can see those whiskey-colored eyes flash as he reads between the lines of the question.

_You want to keep the baby, right? This little vulnerability, this fragile piece of hope?_

_I’ll let you keep it, if…_

“I know a doctor," Chris says. "Deaton. He’s in the area. I’ll find him, when you need him. We have time, Stiles. It’ll be alright.”

 _This boy isn’t broken_ , Chris thinks to himself as Stiles's eyes flash with understanding. _Not by a longshot._

Stiles shakes his head in disbelief. “I need check-ups… vitamins… I can’t…”

“We’ll make it work.”

“I can’t…” Stiles whispers again, and Chris sees that he’s suddenly thinking about more than just surviving to the next moment, more than just the basic practicalities of this situation.

The young man looks devastated, alone, heartbroken, scared. He is still shivering – it’s cold in the house and Stiles is stiff and hurting and Chris is yammering at him about his grand plans and none of it is helping.

They’re talking in circles.

Chris feels something click into place, solidify inside of him, a solid core. He sees a clear path, a simple and familiar course of action, and it fills him with a long-lost kind of self-confidence.

He can do this. He’s good at this part.

Stiles is cold and filthy and hungry and grieving. That means Chris needs to turn the water back on, get some fires going, find some clothes, find some food. Feed and touch and comfort and make warm.

Help Stiles.

Take care of Stiles.

That was the point of all this, after all. Find a project, a goal, a purpose. Find a reason to keep on living. Find someone to take care of so that he wouldn’t be so goddamn alone. 

“We’ll make it work,” he says again, and this time there is no hesitancy in the words. “First things first, though. Let's get you cleaned up.”


	2. What's going down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Rape/non-con elements and sexual coercion. There is no straight-up violence between the characters but this is not a healthy relationship and neither side is in a good place in terms of mental health or consent. Smut at the end.

“Your bathroom has a fireplace,” Stiles comments idly.

He’s stating the obvious, but Stiles finds that it is helpful sometimes to do so, especially these days. Now that modern pharmaceuticals have gone the way of the dodo, he has had to come up with new ways of coping with his ADHD.

Plus, he’s living in a dystopian nightmare version of the almost-apocalypse. He is pretty sure he can be forgiven for anchoring himself to the present any way he can. Frankly, he's kind of amazed he's made it this far.

He takes a sip of water as Chris takes out clean towels and moves to light the fire, lets the warmth of the space seep into his bones and unlock his stiff joints, and contemplates the notion that his life is very strange.

It has been that way for a long time, in fairness, but now as he distances himself mentally, standing outside of himself and watching as he hovers awkwardly in this stranger’s stupidly large and elaborate bathroom in a state of complete uncertainty about his future and the future of his child, it strikes him fully.

This is very, very weird.

He should probably be more concerned right now, but he isn't.

He feels very detached at the moment. Far away from it all, and unable to drag himself back into focus.

Fractured. Fracturing.

Exhaustion makes him giddy and almost stoned. The cup of water in his hand is cold and good. His feet are sore still and covered in small cuts and scratches from being so long without protection, and he uses the pain there as a point of contact with the world. He tries to grow out roots through the soles of his feet in the hope that they will keep him tethered in this moment.

Focus. Reality. The present.

Derek is dead.

Stiles and the peanut are here now, in this isolated place far away from the only home Stiles has ever known. They are here with a man who swears up and down that he isn’t going to hurt either of them.

Not unless he is forced to.

(A man who has said at several different points and in several different ways that he is more than capable of keeping them here and hurting them. Who has made it clear that hurting or not hurting them is his choice and his alone.)

_Derek is dead._

Stiles isn’t sure why he feels so numb to this fact. Cold and stiff inside and out. It's shock, he knows this, he felt the same way when his mother died, but he still thinks he should feel something.

When his dad died he had raged. It was too much then, an overflow of emotion.

Now he is afraid that he is too deep under the water, that he has somehow atrophied through his pain.

Too stiff to bend, too unyielding.

That's dangerous... it's no good. When he breaks he will _break_. He will fracture like glass. He is too distant and cold and stiff to do anything but shatter.

He doesn't know how to help himself, however, so he stays in this strange, hovering, coma-like state and waits.

Chris is not oblivious to Stiles’s feelings, though for now the boy is quiet so the older man feel comfortable focusing on his tasks instead of his companion. Fortunately, he always makes a habit of keeping plenty of dry wood stocked indoors so he has all he needs to get the fire going without going to chop more just yet.

“It's more of a grate, but, yes, there’s a fireplace in most of the rooms,” Chris says, responding to the earlier statement. “It gets cold in the fall and winter months and it’s easier than keeping the electricity going all the time. And the house is well-insulated, which helps.”

It had taken Chris roughly half an hour to get everything put together the way he wanted. He’d wrapped Stiles up in a blanket and left him on a dusty couch while he set about turning his cold, abandoned domicile into something approaching livable.

The water had to be turned on again, and the generator checked and primed. He gave a cursory check to other security measures in and around the house as he went, and began a mental list of some basics they’d need to stock up on during his next supply run, like candles.

Maybe some herbal tea for Stiles. He probably shouldn’t drink caffeine in his condition. If there is any tea left unclaimed in the abandoned strip-mall where Chris gets most of his day-to-day supplies, he'll get some for the whiskey-eyed boy.

There isn’t much food in the house – this last raid had taken a while, and he still needed to sort through what he has in the truck – but when Chris scopes out what is left in the cellar he finds deer jerky, bags of nuts, and a barrel of apples. He snags what he can carry and returns upstairs.

Part of him is anxious about leaving Stiles alone for any length of time, even just to run errands around the house. Their situation is so tenuous at the moment. However, when he returns to the living room he finds the boy dozing peacefully on the couch.

Chris has no doubt that life with Stiles will be full of frustrations and excitement. He doesn’t for a moment believe that the boy was convinced by his little speech about the impossibility of escape.

He may, in time, come to regret choosing the pregnant Carrier whose eyes screamed intelligence and whose secret wit promised to keep Chris on his toes. This may not be the quiet retirement he’d hoped for, and once the baby comes it will certainly would take a turn for the surreal.

However, in that moment, watching Stiles sleep fitfully curled up in a blanket, Chris felt strangely satisfied.

Now Stiles is awake and aware, and he hums and watches as the wood catches fire in the grate, having gamely woken up at the promise of a warm bath and some food.

Admonished by Chris to eat and drink slowly, he nibbles on nuts and sliced apples and sips cold water from a mug as the older man finishes with the fireplace and turns to start filling the big clawfooted bathtub.

The first few minutes’ worth of water comes out rust-colored and cold but soon enough it runs clear and warm. Chris plugs the drain and turns to help Stiles out of his clothes.

The younger man is docile enough when Chris tugs his t-shirt over his head. With everything he has been through and everything that has been done to him, he is clearly still too sore and tense to comfortably undress himself, so he allows Chris to help him. He sets his apple slices aside and lets his arms lift up, shivering as the air hits his bare skin. He is still chilled through from the journey here.

Chris, out of respect, tries to keep his touch clinical even as his thoughts run quickly in the opposite direction.

Shirtless Stiles is thin – Chris indulges in a brief fantasy of feeding him (hand-feeding him, that clever tongue brushing against his fingers, lips wrapping around them) and nursing him back to a healthy weight (a soft and full and yielding shape for him to press against and into, a body sated by rich meats Chris himself will hunt and kill and dress) – and his skin is dotted with moles Chris wants to trace with his fingers or his tongue.

The older man’s eyes trace his curves and lines, sharp in some places and supple in others, and the gentle swell of his full womb stretching against the skin of his midsection. His fingers brush over Stiles’s stomach briefly and the boy inhales sharply, though he doesn’t say anything.

The touch is brief, anyway. Very nearly as clinical and disinterested as it ought to be.

Stiles even submits silently when Chris undoes the top of his pants and pulls them down, half-kneeling at his feet. This might be an issue of practicality as much as anything – the position allows Stiles to place one hand on Chris’s shoulder and one hand on his own belly to balance himself as he steps out of his clothes.

The damp heat of Chris’s mouth is dangerously close to Stiles’s cock, but Stiles just keeps his gaze firmly on the crackling fireplace as if it is the most fascinating thing in the room. 

When Chris stands and steps away he generously ignores the near-silent huff of not-quite-relief that escapes the boy, and wonders if this is the way it’s going to be now. If Stiles will simply remain distant yet submissive, repressing all those personal parts of himself and denying Chris everything but silent obedience.

He wonders if there is a crack in the boy's armor wide enough for him to climb through. If he can startle this relative stranger into expressing an emotion he can use against him.

He needn't worry too much about empty submission, as it turns out. Stiles is plenty compliant right up until the moment Chris pulls away from the boy's nude form and starts to take his own shirt off.

“What the hell are you doing?” the boy asks, voice strained, breath hitching.

Chris resolutely doesn’t smile as Stiles’s face goes red. Instead, he tugs his shirt the rest of the way off and then unbuckles his belt and pushes his jeans down.

“If you think there’s enough hot water for two baths you might have overestimated my generator,” he replies mildly, tugging his pants and socks off and then turning to the shut off tub's tab and check the water temperature.

Stiles splutters, nothing Chris doesn’t expect, but the day has apparently worn the boy down enough that even he can’t put up much resistance for long. Stiles quiets himself down on his own, teeth snapping shut with a decisive click while Chris ignore him in favor of finishing preparing their bath.

When Chris, satisfied with the water temperature, turns back and offers him a hand to help him maneuver into the tub, Stiles doesn’t refuse him. His mouth is set in a firm, flat line, but he doesn't let his pride or pique get the better of him. His restraint is rather impressive, given the situation.

Chris gets in the water after Stiles is settled in, slotting in behind him so that the smaller body is wedged between his legs and cradled against him. 

Stiles sighs in relief at the heat warming his frozen body and reaches for the thick bar of soap resting on a dish on the tub's edge.

Chris inhales for what feels like the first time in years.

It’s glorious.

You would maybe never know it to look at him, but Christopher Argent, the feared and respected raider who so coolly selected Stiles as his war prize, is nearly half-insane with touch-hunger and loneliness, and has been for quite some time.

He didn’t realize at first how much he missed it... the irreplaceable feeling of skin against skin.

Casual touches, casual flings, the press of bodies surrounding you in public places. When the plague swept through the options for those seeking human connections had been pared down considerably, and then when the war struck the need to fight and survive overrode every other consideration, including the need for intimacy.

For some, it even destroyed what little humanity was left inside of them. 

Chris knows that Kate used to fuck anyone and everyone she could get her hands on with a brutality that left them twitchy and raw and almost completely emotionally and mentally unreachable after she was done.

He never did that. He never wanted it that way. And if he couldn’t have it the way he wanted he’d just as soon not have it at all… but the price of that was years of nothing instead.

Chris’s desperation for touch burns him from the inside out, and as the boy’s firm body, his smooth, warm skin is forced to press back against him in the enclosed space of the big bathtub, the older man has to repress a full-body shudder of pleasure and relief.

This is what he wanted. Stiles has already proven his worth a thousand times over just for this gentle, if reluctant, touch. Just for being here, being warm and breathing and beautiful and _here._

(And the horrible things Chris has done… are they worth this? Must be.)

“Have you had bad symptoms yet?” the older man asks as he tucks himself behind Stiles, spooning him and trapping him between his legs. He's hyperconscious of his own breath and the way it puffs against Stiles's skin and hair as he leans slightly over the boy's shoulder.

Oh, he can smell Stiles's hair. He can feel his chest rise and fall against him. He can practically taste the sweetness of his skin.

Chris forces himself to calm down, lest Stiles realize too soon just how happy Chris is to have him here.

(They both ignore the fact that the older man is hypersensitive and hardening rapidly. Stiles says nothing, does nothing, even though there is no way he can't feel the evidence of this pressing against his lower back. Chris shifts subtly so that it is somewhat less obvious and sinks into the luxury of unhurried, simple arousal before refocusing on the conversation at hand.)

The question is strategic. They should start getting to know each other, and this is a way to do that. Chris is asking a question he actually wants answered, and Stiles seems to be more comfortable when he is talking.

That’s fine. Chris wants to hear him talk.

“Heartburn, mostly,” Stiles says after a brief moment of hesitation. “Stiffness, but that could be other stuff to be honest. I was sick a lot in my third month, which sucked because it’s not like I had so much to eat that I could afford to throw it up again. Derek would...”

Stiles goes suddenly silent and Chris can guess why.

“Derek is the father?”

Chris doesn’t really need an affirmative, which is fine because Stiles doesn’t give him one. 

The boy just scrubs idly at his toes.

Chris wraps his arms around Stiles's midsection in a gentle, anchoring embrace. It forces the boy to go still, like an animal trying not to let the trap snap shut (too late for that), but the older man can’t make himself regret or relinquish the hold.

He can’t see Stiles’s full expression but he can see his profile. He is truly so very lovely, exactly what Chris would have chosen if he’d had all the world to pick from.

Yet that face now is twisted, morphing into a grimace of pain… or something worse. Physical pain is nothing. This is something else.

Something like the feeling of being torn apart from the inside out.

_Derek is the father._

_Derek is dead._

_Stiles_ _is in the arms of the man responsible for this._

Chris doesn’t flinch, doesn’t loosen his grip, doesn’t give in to his better angels and their urgent demands that he back off.

There is nothing for it. The only way out is through and, in a way, Chris is just as damaged as Stiles... and he can’t… he won’t let himself drown in ‘what ifs’ and morality problems.

“Derek would... what?” he asks instead, tightening his grip, running his hands over Stiles’s swollen belly cradling new life, pushing his filthy fingers into the open wound in this boy’s soul.

Merciless, as always.

“Derek would what, Stiles?”

He can do this forever if he needs to. He can be without pity, without regret. He can poke and prod every day for the rest of their lives because at the end of the day he doesn't want a stone statue for a lover, and he doesn't want a broken toy for a partner.

If he needs to crack Stiles open to save him, he will.

Or Stiles can just give in.

"What would Derek do?" Chris repeats. "Stiles..."

“He… would… give me his… food,” the boy suddenly forces out, like the words are being pulled from him against his will.

It's painful and it's impossible, but Stiles's love is vast and his own greatest power is speech. He can’t fight it any more than he can stop breathing.

“He was,” Stiles continues in a miserable, choppy way. Radical honesty, designed to hurt them both. “I mean. He’s… just, such a stubborn asshole. I’d get so sick. I tried so hard to keep my rations down. I hated that I was being so… we didn’t plan for this. We’d just found out I was… and it was a surprise. We didn’t want to have a baby when everything was so awful, didn’t plan this… but… but he’d… I did better with fruit, so he traded all his own food for… for fruit even though he hates… hated… fruit, and apples especially and… and he always had, like, the fastest metabolism ever. He was always eating, before. Before the end. I used to tease him about it. I called him 'Derek the Human Vacuum Cleaner'. But, suddenly, it’s like… ‘I’m not hungry.’ Or, ‘I ate with Erica already’...”

Stiles’s voice breaks, cracks like glass on the last phrase, and he physically folds in on himself, curls his body away from Chris's embrace.

"He's such a liar," the boy whispers, shaking. "For me... such a stupid liar."

Chris lets him have some space, loosens his grasp, but doesn’t let the boy put more than a couple of inches between them.

“I only found out for sure today,” Stiles chokes out. “That was today, wasn’t it? Feels like weeks ago I saw his body in the square. I think I knew for almost a week before that he was gone, though. And I used to think… I'd tell him that it was too good. That we’d made something good and that it wasn’t going to last. Not now. Not in this world. I never trusted it. And I was right.”

Stiles is crying, the restrained, near silent crying that they’d all learned to do in recent years, after the end, in this new world where weakness and vulnerability aren’t things you can show. Where having sound and softness makes you prey.

Stiles thinks, again, as he did when he saw Derek’s body, that there is a strange symmetry to things, an unescapable inevitability. Like the stories of ancient times and old world punishments, like the strings on a board linking disparate clues together, like the threads of a spider's web.

He feels like Sisyphus, carrying out the impossible task he is doomed to fail and fail and fail again.

The impossible task – to live without Derek. To go on without his father and any of his friends. To carry a child, his and Derek’s child, and give it life and keep it healthy and safe.

To do all these impossible things alone.

Alone.

That was a threat used earlier, wasn’t it? That if he tried to kill Chris, this new man, this stranger holding him close, this violent captor, this murderer, he might wind up alone. Alone and trapped.

But he already is.

He’s trapped.

He’s alone.

Exhaustion seeps into every cell of his body. He is crying softly and then the tears stop simply because he doesn’t have the strength to go on.

_I can't go on._

_I'll go on._

Chris lets him shake and cry and grieve, trains his eyes on the fire until the younger man wears himself out. After a few long moments he can see in the set of Stiles’s shoulders that he is calming down.

He watches as the boy pulls himself back together, ties all the broken threads of himself in a knot that will hold. He doesn’t think the boy is doing it consciously – maybe he is simply acting out of habit, the habit of being alive and going on – but he is doing it all the same, and Chris can see it.

It’s strange and beautiful. Watching him.

He could watch him forever.

Tentatively, he reaches out again, touches that pale skin. He wants to comfort. He wants to take all the heartache away, and also to slip into the heartache and immerse himself in that raw emotion, freely given, savage and lovely and true.

Chris may not be a man much given to emotional self-expression, but he doesn’t think Stiles is weak. If anything, he is in awe of his strength and the sheer courage of his grief. Of his ability to still love so much in this dangerous world.

Chris is not used to this. Even before the end when he was just a glorified weapons salesman juggling an unpleasant home and family life, he wasn’t much of a talker, wasn’t so good with people crying and hurting and needing him to say things that would make it all better. He always wanted to help, but his ways are more material, more pragmatic than emotional.

He’d feed and provide and comfort in small, unobtrusive ways.

He'd make his mother a cup of tea, hold her hand, and say nothing.

He’d quietly try to fix the problem… but there is no fixing this for Stiles, not really.

Chris wraps his arms back around Stiles, around not-quite-broken Stiles, who shudders after a moment of stiff resistance and then folds suddenly like a paper doll. He sinks back into the warm water and lets out a weak grunt, pressing against Chris’s bare body.

“My feet hurt a bit,” Stiles continues in an unnervingly steady voice after a brief pause, clearly changing the subject, forcing his feelings down into something more manageable. “They’re starting to swell.”

“...That’s dehydration.”

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs, exhausted with the effort of managing all the different hurting things inside of himself.

Chris lets the boy slump against him. He wants very much to lean down and press a gentle kiss against that pale shoulder. He refrains, however, knowing that it would not be welcomed. He contents himself with simply nodding, brushing his beard against the side of Stiles's head in an almost-nuzzle.

“Okay," he says, thoughtfully. "In a few days I’ll go out. I know a place that should have some things we can use. There are electrolyte salts in one of the boxes in the kitchen. And I can rub your feet… might help.”

Stiles snorts. “Why? I mean…”

“I told you why,” Chris says.

He is losing focus a little because the emotional weight bearing down on both of them and because the feeling of Stiles’s skin pressed against him, up and down the whole length of his body, is sending mini-shockwaves through his own touch-starved flesh.

Still, he is cogent enough to see that Stiles doesn’t believe him. That’s okay. He’ll keep saying it anyway.

“I don’t think morning sickness and dirty diapers are part of anyone’s idea of retirement,” Stiles murmurs, a hint of wryness in his voice.

Perhaps, and it’s true that while Chris planned this, he didn’t plan _this_. Part of him never thought he’d get this far, and he doubts that he, even in his wildest dreams, could have ever imagined and planned for Stiles.

Chris also hears the underlying question in Stiles’s quip. There are certainly those who would hurt Stiles for being pregnant, for bringing this added burden into the world, for interrupting their plans for their own personal survival and pleasure with his complicated needs.

There are those who would cut the baby out of him, or wait until after the birth and then leave the child out to die.

Stiles is testing the waters, probing Chris’s seeming willingness to support both him and his baby. Challenging the easy promises made in the first moments of their exchange.

Chris seems, ostensibly, on board with the idea of a child, yet he also implied that such complacency hinges on Stiles and his willingness to submit and obey.

They are both still mysteries to each other. Stiles is just trying to figure Chris out.

And while Chris will use the leverage he has, in truth, as he studies the boy, he considers the idea that a child is no hardship. Not really.

He wanted Stiles from the first moment he saw him, was drawn to those warm whiskey eyes as they shot a contemplative glance up at the sky, needed to touch that pale skin, warm it under the palm of his hand, run his fingers through soft, jet-black hair, feel those long limbs pressed against him.

Now, even now, a large part of Chris is punch-drunk and floating in the bliss of skin-on-skin contact with a boy who is fulfilling his every desire without even realizing it.

That the object of his desire comes with this added baggage, this little life growing in his womb, is a small thing indeed in the face of all this warmth and satisfaction.

And also… the child itself is not wholly unwanted. Not by Chris.

In fact, he is rather warming up to the idea.

A baby would be something small and soft to cradle close. He could teach them things, watch them sleep, see their eyes glow with delight at the treasures and comforts he would provide. He could feed them like he plans to feed Stiles, knit them tightly into his everyday existence, nurture both parent and child to glowing health.

Nurture them both to something like contentment, in time.

(Chris won’t allow himself to entertain the possibility of happiness. That, he thinks, is too fantastic and unbelievable.)

Even if the child is not his he can do this – and perhaps it is better if they are not. Perhaps the madness that runs in his blood, that he saw in his father and sister, is better dying out with him.

So really, this is ideal.

And Chris will do his best to earn this gift. One way or another.

“Is it safe for you to have sex at this point in your pregnancy?” he asks, one hand dipping into the water and lifting up a palmful of warm liquid.

There is a brief silence.

“I…I think so,” Stiles admits finally, tensing against the curve of Chris’s body. “My… a nurse I know… knew… she said it was okay. That it can’t hurt the baby.” His eyes narrow and his hands twitch again, and the next words he speaks are slightly barbed. “As long as I’m not in pain or uncomfortable it should be fine.”

Clever boy, drawing lines and setting boundaries to protect himself and his child.

This secretly pleases Chris. It seems like something the real, sharp, witty Stiles would say - and Chris finds that he wants that version a lot more than he wants a silent, compliant toy.

“Well then,” Chris smiles slightly. “Why don’t we start small?”

Though he doesn't flinch or argue, the spark in the boy’s eyes fades instantly, shuttered behind a grim wall of resignation.

If Chris was a better man, he would wait.

If he was a better man, he would allow Stiles time to grieve the loss of his lover and his old life, to adjust to his new surroundings, to reconcile himself with this situation.

To learn a little more about the man who now commands him. To learn to live with this.

_I can't go on, I'll go on._

Chris swears to himself that he will give Stiles all these things… later.

He could tell himself that it will do no good to wait. That there is a language in physicality that speaks where words fail and that this is what they both need right now. They need the closeness without the complications.

He could also tell himself that whatever happens next is part of a mutual exchange. He doesn’t want to fight, and he isn’t going force Stiles to defend himself, to lash out or break under the weight. He won't be cruel, won't break the peace.

He could tell himself that it doesn’t have to be horrible if Stiles doesn’t want it to be. That the ball is effectively in the boy’s court. That Stiles has a choice about where they go from here.

Plenty of justifications.

But also, Chris simply feels driven by the need to own and claim.

It is impossible for him to be otherwise – he has been a raider without a moral code for too long. He has his own needs that have been left unacknowledged, and in this new world there is only selfishness now. You must look after yourself before anyone or anything else.

He wants to touch Stiles.

And while he isn’t good at talking, usually, he forces himself to swallow down his reluctance. If the kid can be vulnerable, grieving and crying, then the least Chris can do is offer some kind of honesty in return and try to charm the little fox a bit. He can make it a little better even while he takes and takes and takes.

He curls around Stiles’s stress-ridden body, two spoons nestled together in a drawer. He keeps his touch as gentle and as non-threatening as possible, and above the waist.

He can’t help but be a little proprietary, a little possessive in the roving of his hands – this all belongs to him now, after all. It is his by right of conquest and right of possession. But he doesn’t bruise and he tries not to restrain too much as Stiles shifts uneasily against him.

Stiles understands, he isn’t stupid, he knows what this exchange will be and must be and he will follow through despite his pain and grief because that is what is necessary to keep his child safe. He knew the moment he knelt in the square what the nature of this relationship would be, and he is nothing if not pragmatic underneath all that emotional honesty.

That doesn’t mean Chris can’t offer him some thoughts, some coaxing, some space to breathe.

“It’s just sex, kid,” Chris murmurs, voice lulling and gentle in the peaceful quiet of the bathroom. “It's just comfort and touching and surviving together. Physicality is easy, don’t you think? Feelings are what makes it complicated, but touch is so simple. Plenty of people sleep together who don’t love each other… or even like each other. Plenty of people who hate each other are intimate.”

The word ‘intimate’ makes Stiles twitch, and Chris backtracks.

“You need to relax, for the baby,” he says, redirecting focus. Stiles huffs humorlessly. “Stress isn’t good for either of you. It’s okay to feel comfortable. It’s allowed... there's nothing wrong or evil about it. Are you in pain?”

He’s not necessarily asking just about the physical pain.

Stiles tilts his head and looks up at him with surprisingly shrewd eyes.

“Not so much at the moment,” he says after a beat. “But I have a feeling I’m gonna be hurting a lot real soon.”

It isn’t clear if Stiles is making a crack about his own fears about Chris’s sexual proclivities or acknowledging the emotional storm that is going to land on his head as soon as the shock wears off.

They may both be in a world of hurt as soon as all of this sinks in for them for real.

Chris decides to read Stiles’s words in his own way, with circumspection. “There’s a lot of pain in this world. You’ve survived a lot, I know, and it’s not going to be easy going forward either. My money is on you though. I think you can take it. You'll probably outlast us all. The question isn’t that you’re going to survive. The question is how. What your life is going to be like now.”

Stiles is still and quiet, listening. His eyes are damp and glistening but also warm.

He seems strangely present. Thoughtful. Working through the pain bit by bit.

Chris can help with that.

“I can make you feel good, sweetheart,” Chris murmurs. “I can’t take it all away, but I can help make it better.”

His hand drifts down and caresses the area just above the boy’s cock, stroking, tickling. His fingers run through the wiry hairs down there, up the curve of his belly, back down again. He very deliberately doesn’t go lower, keeps it gentle and teasing. 

The other hand finds a pert nipple and plucks it, a calloused thumb rubbing languid circles around the sensitive bud.

A promise, an offering.

“You can have this, take this for yourself. You're hurting, I know, but you can have this pleasure... make it all a little easier. You can... you can let me seduce you. Let me take the lead and make you feel safe and wanted and good. If you give me a little, I can make it so good for you, so sweet. I can bring you around in time.”

Chris reminds himself to breathe, matches his inhale and exhale to the rise and fall of Stiles’s chest. He is trying to charm and coax the boy but also he himself feels strangely fragile, flayed open by his own need, by the wild, meaningful promises he wants to make, by the person he wants to be but isn’t.

“You can seduce me, too, if you want,” he whispers, breathing in Stiles's ear, keeping his voice steady even though he is raw and aching and desperate inside. “You can manipulate and lie to me if that makes you feel better about all this. Pretty sure you're smart enough to run rings around me, no problem. There’s not a lot I wouldn’t do for you, wouldn’t give to you, if it’s in my power and if you’re sweet to me in return. But I want you willing. I need that. So… lie to me, be selfish, hate me, push me, be whatever you want, but… I need you willing. As willing as you can be. Please.”

Chris feels bold, and also pathetic. What kind of man begs his captive for romance?

And yet... here, in a lonely cabin at the end of the world, why not?

Who is the master and who is the slave? Who is seducing who? Who shudders, craving touch, and who withholds, standing aloof with one hand on the whip?

And does it really matter, in this place out of time, which one is unmaking the other?

There is a long pause and then Stiles shivers, sucks in a deep breath, and pushes up into Chris’s hand. Chris’s trembling fingers wrap themselves around the boy’s cock, finding new steadiness and purpose as they begin to fondle him.

He keeps his strokes languid at first, slow and long and with heartbreaking intimacy. His casual play with Stiles's nipples grows more deliberate as he pinches and teases. Stiles is sensitive there - Chris doesn't know if he is always that way or if it is a side-effect of the pregnancy - and the gasps and wiggling grow in intensity.

Stiles hums and then whimpers slightly and Chris can tell that the boy will be loud in bed, whatever they end up doing together. It makes sense - as little as he knows about Stiles, he can see that the kid is loud. It's pretty obvious that he's a lot, so much, all the time. 

Whether Stiles wants to or not, he matches Chris, mirrors and reflects him. He fills in the empty spaces. He is the roaring ocean crashing against Chris's granite cliff face.

Chris drinks in the sounds, follows them, strokes and twists and rubs his fingers in response to the changing expressions on Stiles's face, catalogs all the ways his new lover feels pleasure.

His own erection is aching, rubbing against Stiles's back as the boy writhes against his hands, but he ignores it for now. 

He doesn't want to be distracted by his own need. He doesn't want to miss a moment of this.

“I…” Stiles whimpers. “I can’t…”

“Shhhh,” Chris whispers. “It’s okay. It’s yours. It’s all yours, sweetheart. Just take it…”

Chris stops toying with Stiles's nipples and lets free hand slide down under the water. He finds and strokes the silky skin of the boy's balls, cutting off Stiles's protest and turning it into a deep groan.

Unable to help himself, Stiles twitches and thrusts up into Chris's grip, desperate for more friction. 

"That's it, baby," Chris finally lets himself press a kiss to Stiles's shoulder, nipping and sucking at the skin there when he isn't pushed away. After the briefest hesitation, he latches on to the exposed flesh with his mouth and sucks hard, determined to mark the boy with a well-placed bruise. Stiles responds well to the pleasure-pain, letting out a sharp gasp and then a high-pitched whining sound.

Chris tightens his hand around Stiles's cock, offering the boy some much needed relief. Stiles thrusts up and then grinds back, held in place by the edges of the tub and Chris's grip and writhing against his restraints with increasing abandon.

"Fuck my hand. Let me take care of you. Let me help you relax and feel good. Does it feel good?"

"Uhhh...," Stiles gasps and nods.

Chris's fingers slip past his balls and down to press against Stiles's perinium and then prod and tease his soft, puckered hole. 

Stiles tenses when he feels the fingers pressing against the tender skin of his hole, but he breathes out a moment later and lets it happen.

He feels grief and he feels shame and he feels pleasure.

He lets it happen.

A part of him is screaming inside, wild and heartbroken, resistant to any attempt by Chris to violate and claim him. A part of him condemns himself for this, for losing Derek, for not fighting back hard enough, for going down this dark and twisted road.

The larger part of him, though, wants to shatter. Needs to break. 

Something in him is willing to commit this betrayal, this horrific sin, if it means that he can crack and break through the diamond-hard shell surrounding his soul, the one that has been suffocating him ever since he first became aware of the sheer magnitude of his loss.

This will flay him open and he needs that, needs to be bad to be good. Needs to steer into the skid. Needs to cauterize this wound so it can heal. 

Needs to do this so that he can maybe, just maybe, survive the outrageous force of the inner demons dragging him down.

He arches as Chris pushes his finger in, plundering that sacred place. Water splashes dangerously around in the tub, sloshing over the edges, but neither man cares. The first finger is followed closely by the second, tips Stiles onto the razor thin line between pleasure and pain, and then Chris twists them around and finds the boy's prostate.

Stiles cries out, a fractured wail of bliss and sorrow, as Chris milks his cock, rubs frantically with his fingers at his inner pleasure spot, whispers filth and romance into his ear.

Raw and oversensitive, he tips over that edge and cums in the older man's hand, shuddering with aftershocks and letting sensation wipe out everything else within him, white out the grief and the guilt and replace it with something simple and clean.

Chris swears, pulls his fingers out of Stiles so he can reach back and touch himself, jerks roughly for a minute before cumming all over Stiles's back.

The boy can feel it against his skin, and through the haze of his post-orgasm senses he registers it as a claim, a statement of ownership. 

The almost primal, pure peace that settles into the younger man's body is a welcome reprieve. It is also temporary. Stiles understands, has experienced this cycle before. Still, he accepts it with relatively little guilt. In this life you take blessed relief whenever it comes. 

The bad comes anyway... might as well take the good, too.

Derek would never blame him for this, for what he has done... for what he has allowed to happen. Stiles knows this, knows Derek and the depth of his lost husband's love. Derek would not blame him for surviving, for feeling, for being loved, for breaking whispered promises and taking a baseball bat to the sanctity of his own heart.

He wouldn't need to. Stiles carries quite enough self-hatred inside of him all on his own. 

In the quiet that follows, Chris leans over and tries to kiss Stiles on the mouth. Stiles jerks back, startled, and turns his face away, though not without seeing the flash of hurt that crosses Chris's face.

Stiles refuses to feel bad about that. He's hurt, they're both hurting...

They don't need or deserve anything more.

They will probably kill each other before this is all over.

Well...

Fair enough.

Chris plants his unwanted kiss on Stiles's long throat instead, before leaning back against water-warmed porcelain and turning his face to the side to study the only fire remaining in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, guys! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, as well as thoughts and requests about where you may want the series to go from here!  
> You are all awesome stardust people - stay healthy and safe!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! So I guess I'm keeping up with this AU though it's probably going to be fairly light on plot and background details and heavy on angsty introspection with some smut scattered throughout going forward - hope you're liking it so far and please do drop me a comment, I love to chat and hear from you!  
> As ever if I've forgotten something that should be tagged please let me know and I'll be happy to add it. 
> 
> You are all awesome stardust people and I'm hope you're healthy and safe and hanging in there! Hugs <3 <3 <3


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